Supermarket pharmacies are gearing up to become major providers of COVID-19 vaccinations. Grocery stores say they are well-positioned to provide the vaccines because a large share of the population lives near one of their stores, and their pharmacies regularly offer vaccinations for other illnesses.

APhA and several other leading pharmacy groups issued a statement Tuesday on the Trump administration's new final rule on prescription drug rebates.

CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) has published its 2020 recommendations for meningococcal vaccination, which cover use of the three quadrivalent conjugate vaccines—menin­gococcal serotypes A, C, W, and Y (MenACWY)—and two available meningococcal serogroup B (MenB) vaccines. The recommendations call on shared clinical decision making for the MenB vaccine for adolescents and young adults ages 16 to 23 years and highlight the importance of these vaccines for patients at increased risk.

The rollout of a COVID-19 vaccine will likely target health care workers and residents of long-term care facilities during Phase 1a, essential workers during Phase 1b, and older adults as well as men and women with comorbidities during Phase 1c.

Starting Friday, November 27, 2020, pharmacies must buy and sell only products with a required “product identifier” on their packages. This requirement is part of the phased-in implementation of the Drug Supply Chain Security Act of 2013 (DSCSA), also known as the “track-and-trace” law. By Friday, dispensers should be familiar with this requirement and know what to do if a product identifier is not on the package when they receive products that require it. The product identifier is on most drug packages in both human-readable format and on a machine-readable 2D data matrix barcode.